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Mr Justice Globe told the Old Bailey: "These attacks demonstrate in stark form the carnage that can be created by different types of terrorist attack which can be carried out with a vehicle, explosives and loaded weapons.

"I am satisfied from the evidence and the jury verdicts that but for the intervention of the counter terrorism unit of West Midlands Police and the security services, there would have been not dissimilar terrorist acts in this country using at the very least the explosives and or one or more bladed weapons."

The court heard Primark salesman and IS fanatic Aziz has previous convictions dating back to 1997 and had been jailed for five years for dealing heroin and cocaine. He only became radicalised after the breakdown of his marriage. It was said Aziz had bought a samurai sword from a Hanley sex shop for £20.

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Rahman - who worked in a Stoke-on-Trent takeaway - has already been jailed for a terror offence after possessing an al Qaida propaganda magazine which contained bomb-making instructions.

Rahman met the two Birmingham gang members in prison and it has led to fears of radicalisation in UK prisons.

Time Line

Stoke-on-Trent terrorists jailed: How the case unfolded

October-December 2010

Mohibur Rahman is among a group of men who meet up in a park in Cardiff while under covert surveillance. Rahman's home in High Lane, Burslem, is later searched by police and copies of an al Qaida magazine are seized.August 23 2011: Naweed Ali and Khobaib Hussain fly out to Pakistan to attend a training camp but abandon their plans and come home within days.

January 31, 2012

Rahman pleads guilty to possessing a terrorist article – the al Qaida magazine Inspire – and is sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail, where he was to meet Ali and Hussain. The magazine contains instructions on how to make a pipe bomb, similar to the one later found in Ali's car.July 25 2012: Ali and Hussain plead guilty at Woolwich Crown Court to engaging in preparation of terrorist acts.

April 27, 2013

They are both jailed for three years and four months.

Spring 2015

Ali is released on February 2, followed by Hussain on March 20, and they return home to their families in Birmingham, living next door to each other.

Autumn 2015

Hussain enrols on a gas-fitting course at South and City College Birmingham, where he learns how to use pipes with compression caps, such as those used to make the pipe bomb in Ali's car.

December 2015

Exchange of WhatsApp messages between defendants. Aziz sends one about three friends joining Isis and Rahman rebukes him, saying: "You wana get arrested and go to jail but it seems like you're looking for a co-D and by the looks of it I'm going to end up being that fish in the bowl."

May 7, 2016

Rahman sends text messages to "AC" about him and Tahir Aziz visiting him. AC is a reference to Anjem Choudary, the radical preacher and figurehead of the banned group Al-Muhajiroun. At the time he was on bail with strict conditions, awaiting trial for inviting support for Islamic State, a charge he was convicted of that summer.

May 26, 2016

Ali, Hussain and Rahman meet secretly at the Jamjar restaurant in Birmingham.

May 27, 2016

Rahman resumes his previous contact with MI5, the prosecution claimed, in an attempt to find out whether they were on the secret services' radar and to get information.

June 22, 2016

Rahman buys the two phones on eBay for Ali and Hussain.

June 23: 2016

Rahman is charged with breaching a notification order and he subsequently indicates a guilty plea and the case was put off to September 2016.

July 11, 2016

Rahman has his final meeting with his MI5 contact. Hussain begins working for Hero Couriers in Birmingham city centre, the fake outfit set up by undercover officer Vincent and colleagues tasked with infiltrating the terror suspect, and later his friend Ali. He goes on to do several shifts and is seen by Vincent to be carrying a multi coloured JD Sports bag on occasion.

August 3, 2016

Ali, Rahman and Hussain spend time on a boating lake. The prosecution claim it is 'cloak and dagger' attack planning however, Hussain says they discussed the MI5 matters, while Rahman said it was nothing of significance.

August 11, 2016

Ali says he has been in London to visit convicted terrorist "Uncle Khaled". He also sets up the encrypted Three Musketeers Telegram group with just him, Hussain and Rahman included.

August 20, 2016

Ali and Hussain go to Rahman's home in Stoke for a meeting and search the internet for the Liquid Bomb Plot.

August 21, 2016

At 1am, they try to make contact with IS-supporting 'hardliner' Aziz, after deciding to bring him into their plans. All four defendants are seen by a surveillance team walking and talking in a park later the same day.

August 25, 2016

The planned attack is imminent and Ali says 'we gotta do something' and talks about the 'comfort of the Herafter' versus the 'ephemeral pleasures of this world'.

August 26, 2016

7.16am: Ali arrives for his first shift at Hero Couriers and is sent to Luton by Vincent. 8.45: An undercover officer arrives with MI5 officers to carry out a technical operation and search of Ali's car. They find a JD Sports bag in the footwell of Ali's Seat Leon containing a partially constructed pipe bomb, imitation handgun and meat cleaver with Kafir scratched on it, in readiness for a Lee Rigby-style attack. The defendants are arrested the same day and a large sword is recovered from Aziz's car.